


No Force on Earth

by GreyBauer, SinBin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Attempted Rape, BAMF Harry Potter, BAMF Hermione Granger, Cheating, F/M, I gotta be honest, Veela Draco, and hermione, but everything will be resolved, but it's just because I love them, i have unrealistic expectations of harry, just kidding, lots of talking though, one character is a dick, so there's that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-05-21 15:14:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6056317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyBauer/pseuds/GreyBauer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinBin/pseuds/SinBin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Draco goes too far, Hermione has to learn to let go. She's worth more than what Draco can give her, she knows that. Now if only she hadn't gone and tied her soul to his, that'd be great.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mudblood

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I wrote this fic to kind of deal with my feelings about the whole "then he kisses her and she doesn't want it at first but then she does" trope. Unwanted advances don't prove the level of a significant other's affections and definitely don't just go away without some long, serious conversations if at all.  
> Everything will turn out okay but it's going to be a bumpy road until then.

Hermione stands with her hands on her hips, feet planted shoulder-width apart. It's dark in her apartment  and cold though the warmth from the just-extinguished fire is enough to stave that off for a moment.

It does nothing to warm the bond in her soul.

Draco's doing it again. Fucking another woman or man, she doesn't care which. What she cares about is the foreign pleasure rolling down the bond, the empty pit that has been growing in her stomach, and the pain beating behind her eyes.

What's worse is the feeling he's trying to hide. Smug that he's fucking someone _worthier_ than her. It takes away any redemption his vague sense of guilt and shame might have bought him.

 She clenches her jaw. Draco won't be coming over tonight. His Veela nature had two major needs- mate and physical affection. Usually those things were gotten together but Draco seemed to be dealing with the latter all on his own. As for the former-- well. He'd seen her that morning.

_Did he know he'd be with someone else tonight?_

Hermione is tired because it's not the first time she's asked herself that question.

The problem, she muses as she strips out of her work clothes, the problem is that she is every inch her parents' daughter. Willing to put her heart through the gauntlet for love, willing to sacrifice her happiness for another's. It's those characteristics that carried her through the disastrous two-year-long relationship with Ron Weasley.

It's the blindness that has carried her through this one with Draco.

Blindness is perhaps the wrong word. She's too smart, too experienced now to be blind. Instead, she is...closing her eyes. Looking away. She's known since they were eleven that Draco was a blood supremacist but she'd thought that, given enough time, enough incentive, he could be different.

Hermione is not going to let herself be blind anymore.

She goes, naked, to her bedroom, then the master bathroom, then the shower. She washes the day from her curves, lets the water push and overwhelm her hair. It's all reflex action as she tries to ignore the bond.

Draco comes, shoots a blinding wave of euphoria against the wall he's erected. He thinks it keeps her from seeing the details. All it does is prevent her from _feeling_ the way he does. She has a similar one in her mind. It's meant to be more but the mate bond won't let it be.

She hates that sometimes.

She doesn't want to see the contentment that steals over him as the Veela basks in physical closeness.  She doesn't want to feel that fucking _pride_.

If he looked at the bond now, he would see her, furious. Hurt. Ashamed. _Humiliated_.

He isn't looking, half asleep already in someone else's bed.

After the war, she promised herself she would never feel _inferior_ again but here she is. Feeling like second runner up in a race she can't even enter but wants too.

She gets out of the shower, dries herself briskly. She can sleep now (maybe) that he's done. She has the next week off in deference to the sensitivity of the experiments in the DoM. She'd planned to spend that week with Draco.

She climbs into bed, pulls the covers over her and pretends she's back in the tent in the Forest of Dean with Harry, the closest thing to a brother she has. She falls asleep to the memory of crappy radio and feeling _warm_.

\--------------------------------

"I'm leaving Draco," she announces to Harry as soon as he enters her apartment the day after next. He freezes in the doorway, arms filled with dinner groceries, but only for a moment. With a raised eyebrow, he kicks the door shut, wandlessly casts a secrecy spell, and joins her in the kitchen.

"Okay," is what he says, proving that he is her favorite.

She pulls the tomatoes from the bag. She begins to chop them for the salad.

Harry starts the stew. Dinner at Hermione's has become a weakly tradition once they'd both been uninvited from Sunday dinner at the Burrow.

"He was with someone else last night," she says. To her horror, it does not come out nearly as nonchalant as she's thought. She swallows, reminds herself that it's Harry, and carries on. "A pureblood, I think."

Harry wordlessly puts the lid on the stew pot, strides over, and hugs her. "I'll kill him," he tells her serenely, resting his chin on the top of her head. Despite his tone he is deadly serious.

She returns the hug for a moment before pulling away. She wipes at the tears gathering in her eyes. "No, no, I'll handle it. I am handling it. I just- I'm just-"

"Processing," Harry offers. He frowns at her. "Veela are rather possessive and, even though Draco is a piss poor one, he won't be any different. Leaving him could end badly."

"I can handle Draco," she says, fights the urge to defend him to Harry. She doesn't know if that's true but she also knows that she doesn't want Draco dead which is what will happen if Harry gets involved. "It's just...I love him."

Harry pulls out a kitchen chair for her and then takes one himself. "I know."

She collapses into her chair and puts her head in her hands. "I've tried to make it work. I thought, maybe, after the War he'd come around."

"You think it's just the blood issue?" Harry asks.

"No," she admits. "But the rest is normal relationship things. Wanting Italian but he doesn't like Italian. Things you can compromise on but this isn't that."

"No," Harry agrees. "It's not." He leans forward, takes her hands in his, envelops them in their warmth. "I'm with you, 'Mione. One hundred percent. Anything you need."

A fresh wave of tears rise to choke her. Harry's more than she deserves, she thinks. His support always overwhelms her, makes her so absurdly grateful for that stupid troll that had pushed them together.

"I'll need your help," she says when she can, "after. I don't know when. There's something I-I didn't tell you. And I need you to understand why I didn't before you get angry."

Harry tenses when she pulls away but lets her. He watches her with his uncanny green eyes as she centers herself but doesn't say anything, trusting her.

She takes a deep breath. "Draco and I completed the bond."

The effect is immediate. Harry's magic lashes out like a storm, whipping the room into disarray. It's only for a moment but by the end, she's panting and half the glass has shattered. Harry himself hasn't twitched a muscle.

"I'm sorr-"

"Don't," he says softly. "Apologize. It's not you I'm angry at, it's him."

"He didn't want me to tell you," she says, folding her arms around herself. "Said he needed time having the bond to himself. Like an adjustment period. I just wanted him to be happy and I thought what's a month or two?" She stares down at her lap, angry and humiliated. "I feel so stupid."

"No one could ever call you stupid," Harry says. He's managed to tuck his magic away and the air smells of ozone. "You're the smartest witch of our age."

"But I am," she cries, jerking up to look at him with red-rimmed eyes. "I should have known that it was too, too sudden, that he wasn't going to change! I should have realized he hadn't changed! I should have-" she bites her lip but meets his eyes. "I should have told you."

"You and Draco were together for a year," Harry says. "During which you constantly weighed the pros and cons of completing the bond. You would have only done it if you thought he had. The fact that he hadn't-" Harry's voice hardened "-is on him." Abruptly, his expression melts. "And though I _wish_ you had told me, you didn't have too. I promised you a long time ago that I wouldn't get involve unless you asked and I meant it."

"You're too good to me," Hermione whispers. "Thank you, Harry."

"No need to thank me, 'Mione. You might not want to considering what I might do to Malfoy the next time I see him."

"I'll keep that in mind," she says. She clears her throat and rubs her hand over her eyes. "But now you know why I need your help."

He nods grimly. "The bond." He sighs and leans back in his chair. "Well, between the two of us we managed to turn this medieval country around. What's an impossible, soul-entwining magic bond to us?"

She laughs and he joins in and they laugh until they start crying and the pot whistles from the stove, telling them dinner is ready.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

It's Monday evening when Draco finally arrives in her apartment, an impressive three and a half days since the Veela last saw his mate.  He never owls ahead anymore, just checks through the bond and arrives.

He's too late for dinner and he has a bottle of wine and a bouquet of flowers.

What she wants to do is slam the door in his face. She's not nearly ready for this but knows that she won't ever be. It's now or never and if she does it in public there is the very real risk that he'd kill someone.

She lets him in, turns her head so his kiss falls on her cheek. He looks confused when she doesn't take the flowers or the wine from him but follows her into the living room nonetheless. She wants his hands full so he won't try to touch her.

"Hermione?" he asks, setting the flowers and the wine on a side table. "What's wrong."

There's no point in delaying it further. The wards are closed, silencing everything and making her walls nearly indestructible.

"I'm leaving you," she says and could kill herself at the look on his face. Like this is a nightmare he hasn't fully comprehended yet.

"What?" he asks.

She wills herself to be strong. "I'm leaving you."

He shakes his head like he's underwater. "No you're not."

"I am," she says. She purses her lips, tries to still their trembling. "I am, Draco."

He is still in shock but the anger is fast approaching. "I don't understand. You- why?"

She wants to shout accusations but she doesn't. The first thing they teach in human resources is how to use "I" instead of "you". It's also the first thing abuse victims do to soothe their abusers.

Draco has never abused her (except he has, all emotional, all the lying). She's using the language not to placate him but to not exacerbate the situation.

She thinks that's what an abuse victim would say.

"I know about Friday," she says. It might as well be a "you" statement but what else can she do? It's the culmination of why she's leaving him and easier to say than the rest.

Draco pales, silver eyes going dark. He tries to smile anyway. "You think that meant anything? Blaise-"

"I don't care who it was," she interrupts though, no, she _really, really_ does. The name is like a brand in her mind but she'll deal with that later. "I care it happened. Why it happened."

They stare at each other. She can see his mind working, looking for any excuse for his behavior, trying to turn this situation around. He's not panicking which was what she feared nor is he going on rampage which is what Harry feared.

She watches as he thinks about using physical proximity aspect of his nature, that he _needed_ touch to survive, and discards it, remembering that he'd been with her that morning. The manipulation is second nature to him and she has, at times, resented it. Resented how he can never let himself _be_ around her like she is around him. It's not a large resentment but it's there.

"I got caught up," he says, runs a hand through his perfect, blond hair. "I swear, Hermione, it's not anything you're thinking."

"I know what it was," she says. "I could see enough through the bond."

He reaches for her, through the bond, checking instinctively. She feels him impact the wall she put up and then sees him register the transparency of it.

"You saw," he repeats and runs a hand over his face. "Hermione, you can't really think I would prefer Blaise over you."

She doesn't attack the obvious by saying he clearly did by merit of him fucking Blaise over her. She wants this over, done with, ordered and stacked away like files in her office that she has no intention of looking at again.

"I think you would prefer a pureblood," she says bluntly. The scars on her arm burn.

"Contrary to whatever you might think of me," he says, biting, "it's not always about blood purity."

"Then what is it, Draco?" she snaps back. She can't help it, the bastard is actually _hurt_ about this like it hasn't _always_ been about the fact he's a pureblood and she's-- she's not. "In what other way do you find me deficient? My looks? My politics? Is it the sex?"

All of her insecurities are welling up, insecurities she'd thought she'd laid to rest long ago but _he keeps bringing up_. She stands tall in front of him, chin jutting forward.

"I don't find you deficient," he says. "Merlin, I love you! You're my mate."

Her lip curls at the word. She'd meant to be calm, composed, she'd thought he would be the one shouting, but she's angrier than she realized. Hurt, maybe, instead of angry. Destroyed. "I'm your mate," she says, "but that doesn't mean you love me."

That's the crux of it, she knows. Hermione was raised in a household with two parents who were (still are) desperately in love. She knows what it looks like. When she was with Ron she knew what it felt like, for a time, that reciprocal love. With Draco she's never felt it no matter how much she wanted too.

He doesn't love her.

"You don't love me," she repeats. Her face is wet. "I'm leaving you."  

She can feel him battering at the wall in her mind but she doesn't look at him. She'd always been good at occlumency so the spikes don't hurt, the jabs don't hurt.

When he grabs her and slams her back into the wall-- that hurts.

She gasps at the impact, breath fleeing from her lungs and his mouth is on hers. He kisses without compromise, forces her tongue into submission. She yells a protest and has no more air left in her lungs. Dark spots have begun to gather in front of her when he finally pulls away, body a hot, firm line against hers, pinning her in place.

His eyes, when she meets them, are a deep, inhuman black. Her heart pounds against her ribs, reverberates in his chest with how tightly he's pressed against her. His Veela nature has come to the front.

" _Mine_ ," he hisses, face inches from hers. He buries his mouth against her neck, nipping and biting. During sex, she finds this erotic. Now, she is terrified when he takes her pulse point in between his teeth.

"No," she stutters. His hips are nudging at hers, insistent, and it is only through their force that she opens her legs, lets him settle against her. He's hard but she doesn't want it and this is _wrong_. "You're not mine, Draco, I can't be yours."

She pushes at his head, tries to get him away from her but he latches onto the space between neck and shoulder with his teeth, growl ripping through him. She cries out at the pain and tries again to shove him away but he won't be moved.

Instead, he grabs her wrists in his hands, shoves them against the wall and grinds against her, slow and filthy. She struggles, writhes against him but he's so _strong_ , stronger than she remembers it seems. All it does is bring her more fully in contact with his hard length which he takes as encouragement to thrust against her forcefully. The zipper of his pants stabs her and she says "ah!". He purrs smugly content, having obviously misinterpreted the source of the sounds. His next thrust is gentler and he grinds a little. His teeth ease out of her neck and he licks at the blood he's drawn, comforting.

Hermione is scared. Draco- it's so much worse than she'd thought and he isn't showing signs of stopping. She can't get away and he's _hurting_ her. Will hurt her more if she continues to struggle.

She does the only thing she can and goes limp and the next time he grinds through their pants she moans. She feels sick, shaky but he's so far gone he can't see that.

He purrs louder, odd vocal cords thrumming, and he comes back up to kiss her. She participates this time, tentatively, scared, and she's crying the entire time.

He doesn't notice, just deepens the kiss and hums appreciatively.

It works. His grip eases around her wrists from crushing to bruising and then his thumbs are rubbing circles over her palms. She wants to rip out of his hold then, take off and run, but she's scared he'll be too fast, that he'll grab her again and next time he won't let go until- until-

She gathers her courage and pushes against him, arcs her body against his, brushes her breasts against his chest. He drops her hands completely in favor of wrapping his arms around her shoulders and the small of her back, pulling her flush against him. She forces her trembling hands, still throbbing from his grip, to slide up and over his shoulders, holding him. She hikes one leg over his hip.

That works too. He reaches down and cups her ass, grinds, and then supports her as she wraps her other leg around his hips.

This doesn't feel good, it feels awful (did _Blaise_ do this too?), but she can't afford to sob. Instead she buries her face against his shirt as he carries them into her bedroom by instinct alone. It's the only place in her apartment that smells like the two of them so completely and she's absurdly grateful that her guess has paid off.

Her wand is on the night stand.

He follows her down onto the bed, blanketing her body with his. He's still doing that odd purr, comforting his mate, and she can't bring herself to relax like she usually does. She brings her hands up to thread her fingers through his hair but he presses them down to the bed. He releases them too quickly for her to properly panic but her heart races nonetheless and she tries to hide the naked fear.

He has other things on his mind and doesn't notice. Or maybe he does.

 He plants kisses along her neck, her collar bones, the valley between her breasts. He rucks up her shirt and lets his mouth fall open and hot on her stomach, tongue swirling lazily. It doesn't feel like usual, like he's anxious for the taste of her, like he can't get enough. This feels predatory and her stomach muscles tense and jump under his ministrations.

When he gets to the waist band of her jeans, she acts. She twists as the button pops open and snatches her wand from the bedside table. He looks up at the movement, eyes still black, mouth filled with sharp, sharp incisors.

She points her wand directly between his eyes. "Stupefy."

He rears back, gaining his knees, spitting and hissing like an angry cat. She flips over and scrambles out from under him and makes for the edge of the bed. A clawed hand grabs her below the knee and he breaks skin as he drags her back.

She screams and kicks out with her other leg. Her foot glances off his hip but it's enough, enough for him to twist away giving her enough room to get her wand between them.

"Stupefy! Stupefy!"

His hand goes slack around her calf and this time when she jerks over the side of the bed she hits the floor, hard. She gains her feet and runs to the living room without looking back. Three stupefies and he's out but not for long. Veela are particularly good at throwing off magic.

She doesn't bother measuring out the floo powder, just throws the entire container into the low burning flames, yells out her destination.

She arrives in the foyer of Potter Manor and doesn't have the strength to stand. She collapses to the ground, heedless of the soot, and shakes. She wants to break down, she wants to cry but the floo--

The floo is still open.

Hermione panics. She can't quite remember the spell to seal the floo and her wand is slipping in her hand and _he could be waking up any minute_.

"Bombarda Maxima!"

The fireplace explodes and she barely has the presence of mind to throw up a shield so she isn't crushed. She lets the shield die while the dust settles and bursts into shoulder-shaking sobs.

Harry runs in then, wand drawn, face tight. It blanks for a moment upon seeing her-- covered in dust, bleeding from the neck and leg, sobbing -- and then he is beside her.

"Where are you hurt? Who hurt you? What happened?" He reaches out to pull her shirt away from her neck and she flinches back. For a second --just a second-- his hand had seemed paler, tipped in sharp nails.

He pulls back, alarmed and hesitant. "Hermione, it's okay, it's me, Harry, I just want to-"

She throws herself at him, pushing the fear down just enough that the need for comfort overwhelms it. This is Harry, this is her brother, he won't, he won't--

She cries into his shoulder.

He tentatively brings his arm up, rubs circles on her back, arms loose around her. Just holds her, doesn't speak. She loves him so much for that, for his unquestioning support, for everything, and she lets go completely. She lets the fear, the tension, the horror slide off of her, lets herself believe in her safety.

 After a long, long time her sobs die down, body too exhausted to sustain them. When she pulls back her eyes are red and puffy and his shirt is wet from her tears.

"I need to ask you some questions," he says quietly. Sometime in her crying he'd maneuvered them so she was sitting in the v of his legs, side to his chest. He keeps his arms around her but is very careful not to tighten them. "Is that alright?"

She sniffles, rubs at one eye with the heel of her hand and nods. Her throat feels raw.

"Was it Draco?"

She nods, throat tightening at the name.

Harry releases a slow, calming breath. "Okay. You left him."

It's not a question but she nods anyway. She matches her next breath to his, is grateful when it reaches her lungs for what feels like the first time. Her head aches.

"He hurt you," Harry says in his calmest voice. There is tension in every muscle of his body but he's doing his best to hide it. "Didn't he?"

She licks her lips. "Yes."

Speaking was a mistake. Her voice breaks and it sounds like she's been gargling with glass. Harry actually twitches and the air around him gets hot for one second before he gets it back under control. He doesn't say anything and she finds herself talking.

"He- he didn't mean to, the Veela took over and I was leaving. He didn't- didn't do anything." _He didn't succeed_.

Harry's jaw clenches but when he speaks his voice is light. "Okay. What do you need right now?"

She expected him to go off so she is surprised by the question. Glad though. She feels tender and delicate and not at all up to convincing Harry that he shouldn't kill Draco.

She takes the reprieve and thinks about it. "I need a shower," she says and her voice is finally beginning to sound like her own. "Then I just want to-- want to rest." She can't help looking at him anxiously. She feels all sorts of wrong in her own body and it's making her nervous.

Harry just nods and helps her to her feet. "Your room or mine?"

"Mine," she says. "I need some... alone time."

He nods again as if that's to be expected. "Alright. Do you want me to send the elves with anything?"

She shakes her head, hates how she still feels foggy. "No, I can manage. There's just-- promise me you won't go after him. He-- I'll be fine."

"I promise I won't kill him," Harry says and makes a face. "Intentionally kill him. I won't go after him until you ask me too." He runs a hand through her hair, gentle. "And, yes, you will be fine. But it's okay not to be for a while."

His words come back to her while she's in the shower and she wraps her arms around her legs and lets herself not be okay while the water pulled every last trace of Draco from her skin.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to GreyBauer for starting as my beta and then basically saving this entire work with her delightful writing :) You should check out some of her original work, it's amazing!

Hermione is not a weak woman. She knows she isn’t. A woman doesn’t do the things she’s done, for herself, for others, for her country, and come out weak. She is strong and she is powerful and she has been violated.

She feels silly to talk about it that way, dislikes that she finds herself tracing the scar on her forearm more often than not. Violations are constant in her life, have always been constant, and she should be used to them. Draco hadn’t done anything she hadn’t faced before, hadn’t broken any sanctity that wasn’t tarnished already. He hadn’t done anything , and she was too well-steeped in trauma to let possibilities frighten her. .

That’s what she tells herself, over and over and over.

She knows it’s normal that she doesn’t want to leave her room at Harry’s. She knows it’s normal that her fingers are shaking  and that she’s kept her hair tied back as if to prevent anyone from grabbing it.  She feels overly conscious of her strength of will, that she will overcome this, move forward, heal. It’s normal to feel weak and powerless and all those things she knows she  _ isn’t _ .

She hates it anyway.

She can’t get Draco’s face out of her head. His face as she told him she was leaving, his face when he lunged for her, his face when she stunned him. She can’t reconcile the face of the man she loved and the one twisting in and out of her dreams.

The wound on her leg throbs. She prefers not to think about it, and doesn’t acknowledge that it keeps time with Draco’s pounding on the wall in her mind. Her soul and his are one, their magic intertwined. She hasn’t tried to pick up her wand since she destroyed the floo, in case she takes the roof off the house by accident.

She takes Tuesday for herself, to stare at her wounds and realize what’s happened. She takes Tuesday to cry and to try and rid herself of the reminders. Her fingers stop shaking. The pounding in her head cuts off a few minutes after she hears Harry apparate out.  

On Wednesday, she steps out of the room, fully dressed, and goes to have breakfast with Harry.

“I’m going to Gringotts today,” she tells him over toast and tea. She pretends like her eyes aren’t swollen and he pretends like he can’t see that they are. In exchange, he pretends the skin over his knuckles isn’t split and she pretends like she can’t see that it is.

“I’ll come with you,” he says. “I need to pick up some more reference books for the next Wizengamot session.”

He doesn’t need more references, not with the Black and Potter libraries in his possession.

“You’re welcome to come along,” Hermione says, sipping her tea. “If you’d like.”

She’ll feel safer with him along.

They go after breakfast, walking to the apparition point just outside his wards. Hermione tries not to feel guilty over the reason why they can’t use the floo. She resolves to fix it later, despite her lack of a Ministry license to do so..

She has the skill, and she doesn’t imagine Harry will much care.

They stop at the bookstore first, where Harry actually does pick up a new reference book. She peruses some of the rarities in the back, idly hoping to find one titled “Escaping a Veela Mate: A Beginner’s Guide.” 

She finds a book on soul magic instead, and puts herself in a back corner of the shop to check that she hasn’t read it before. Harry doesn’t comment when he comes to retrieve her, but he stands behind her in line as they make their purchases.

Hermione would like to say that her eyes don’t dart to every corner they round on the street, but they do. She hasn’t held her wand so tightly since the war, knuckles white and stiff around the wood. She expects Draco to be looking for her here, to be just inside every doorway, although it’s not logical. She hasn’t checked their mental bond since the pounding stopped, and she doesn’t plan on it either. She doesn’t want know what she’d see.

Harry takes her arm when she jumps at an owl’s hoot in front of the familiars shop, the third time something small has startled her since they left the bookshop. She admits she feels better that she’s physically touching an ally, that he switched sides to keep her wand arm free. 

They almost make it to the steps of the bank before there’s a problem.

Pansy Parkinson freezes on the steps of Gringotts when she catches sight of them. Then, bespoke robes billowing, she strides down the rest of the steps and stops directly in front of them.

Hermione lifts her chin. “Pansy, good afternoon.”

The witch doesn’t return her greeting. “How  _ dare _ you, Granger?”

Hermione hadn’t grown to like Pansy in the year she’d been paraded around as Draco’s mate. The woman was bad enough herself, but the undercurrent of sex, jealousy, and secrecy that ran between her and Draco had been enough to make Hermione lose sleep, at times. It wasn’t a wonder that Pansy was the one Draco had turned confided in after… after.

“What a lovely surprise,” Hermione says. What she means is ‘fuck off.’ “Unfortunately, I have business in Gringotts--”

“And you’ve come here with Potter on your arm,” Pansy says with disgust. “You really don’t have any shame, do you? I thought you’d run from Draco eventually but I didn’t expect for you to prove me  _ right _ .”

Hermione feels Harry stiffen and tightens her hand on his elbow. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” says Hermione. “Now, if you’ll excuse me--”

She tries to move past the woman, practically dragging Harry along with her, but Pansy shoves her shoulder hard enough to make her drop her new book.

Hermione stoops to grab it immediately, but not before Pansy catches the title.. Her face turns puce with anger. “You--you--! How dare you!” She turns wild eyes on Hermione, her magic sparking and making the ends of her hair rise. “Draco has given you everything! Everything! And this is how you repay him? You’ll kill him! Give me that!”

Pansy reaches for the book, almost stepping on Hermione’s foot in the lunge, and misses when Hermione pulls it away, nearly elbowing Harry in the rush. She can’t deny that it’s a possibility, that Draco might have enough Veela in him for a wasting sickness to take him if she rejects the bond. But she’d bound herself under the auspices of certain promises, promises Draco has broken.

Almost nose to nose, she looks evenly at Pansy and says, “Perhaps I will.”

Pansy’s lip curls, and she swings her arm back for a slap. Hermione sees it coming all too well, and her spine locks up, the scratches on her calf throbbing as her eyes go wide.

Harry catches Pansy’s wrist with a low thud and white knuckles, eyes hard. “Don’t,” he says into Pansy’s red face. His grip tightens, and she pales when his magic ripples over him, far more powerful than her little sparks.

“You’re guilty of this too, Potter,” she says, yanking her wrist away. Her eyes are too wide.. “Wait until I tell the  _ Prophet _ what you’re helping the mudblood do. Then you’ll see.”

She storms down the steps, spine stiff and robes flapping behind her.

Hermione knows with an ice cold certainty that Pansy’s going to tell Draco what she saw. “Harry,” she says. It comes out thin, high. She can’t help it. She’s not ready to face that, not in the slightest.

Harry’s face is grim. “I know. We’ll come back another day. Let’s go home,” he says, turning on a heel to go back the way the came.

Hermione stays in place, mind working at dizzying speeds. She can go home, away from people and confrontations and too many possibilities. Back to the room she’s been in for days, keeping her hands on the pillows, the bed posts, the window frames to quell the ache that she knows is coming from Draco’s clenched fists on the barrier blocking their bond. She can hide and tie her hair back and forgo her wand, read and read and read until her eyes cross, make short trips to the kitchen and back, cloister herself up until she feels it’s safe again. She and Harry can come back another day, and she can jump at owl hoots and watch the shadows and meet one of the other hundred people who know Draco, who like him better than her. 

But that won’t accomplish anything. That will not get her control back, that will keep her in the moment when she pretended to give in, when she let Draco kiss her and carry her away. Hermione Granger is not a weak woman, she is not a bowing thing. She has always controlled her life.

She’s told Draco that she’s leaving him. Regardless of her feelings, she needs to put words to action. Steel up her spine, show that she won’t be persuaded. She faced a troll at 11, a dark lord at 17. She can manage a stiff upper lip long enough to do what she came her to do.

“No,” she says. She swallows, breathes through her nose and nods decisively. “I need to do this. The goblins won’t let him pass, not when we’re in a meeting.”

Harry looks at her. “If you’re sure.”

She nods, more surely. “I am.”

They make their way into the bank, bypassing the queue for the tellers and heading to the back. There, Hermione requests a meeting with Brooksaw, her account manager.

Whether he’s free or whether the goblins decided to humor her urgency, Hermione doesn’t know. She does know that she’s grateful for the speed with which she’s ushered into a meeting room.

“I’ll wait outside,” Harry tells her, gently removing her hand from his arm. His eyes flash behind his glasses. “Just in case.”

Just in case Draco makes it past the goblins. 

She nods and goes.

Hermione greets the goblin politely as he comes into the room, bowing as befitting someone of his rank. He returns the greeting in kind before sitting at the silver table, his long, spindly fingers folding neatly over her account's ledger.

“I would like to stop the deposits from the Malfoy account,” she tells Brooksaw plainly, without preamble. She removes the required keys from her person and slides them across the table to him. “I would like to return the galleons I have received from said account since the first transfer. I would also like to take myself off of the Malfoy account and take Draco Malfoy off of mine.”

Brooksaw looks from her to the keys and back again. He opens the ledger in front of him and flips through a few pages, peering through his glasses at the fine print. He clears his throat and looks back up at her. “That is...quite a substantial transfer, Ms. Granger. I feel I must inform you that you are under no obligation to return those galleons, regardless of the state of your personal affairs.”

Hermione’s spine stiffens. “I am aware,” she says. “I also know that I have those funds still. I haven’t touched that money.”

She hadn’t wanted to be Draco’s kept woman. She had wanted to show him that she was with him for him, not for his family’s money. He’d set up the transfers anyway, determined to take care of her.

She’s insisted that, if he was going to open his accounts to her, she’d open hers to him. He’d never quite appreciated that for the statement she felt it was.

Brooksaw observes her over his glasses. “Once you take yourself off his accounts, you will not be permitted to access them without his permission. That is quite the fortune you’re giving up, Ms. Granger.”

Hermione nods tightly. “It is.”

Brooksaw’s lip curls, revealing sharp, yellow teeth. His dark eyes gleam under the dim light and he seems distinctly unhappy when he says “Then it shall be done.”

He walks her through the requisite paperwork and, at the end, pockets the Malfoy key.

“An owl will be sent to Lord Malfoy, advising him of the changes to his account.” 

“Of course,” Hermione says. “Thank you.”

He nods in response and walks her to the door.

Harry looks down at her, pushing himself off the wall with his shoulders.

“Home, now, I think,” Hermione says.

They go.

\--------------------------------------------

Hermione feels cold. She’s wrapped in her favorite sweater, she has a heating charm, and Harry’s home is always warm. She still feels cold.

It’s the bond, she knows, just as she knew it had become untenable while she was with Draco.

It’s been four days now since she left him. She has work again after the weekend and she needs to start putting her life into order, rescue it from the storm she feels it’s become.

She has unopened mail on her desk, howlers stripped of their charms. Pansy has taken great pains in sending them to her though Hermione can’t imagine she has anything new to say about the situation.

Her head aches despite the potion she’d downed an hour ago. The pain has been growing worse, an atypical throbbing that comes from the wall. She makes herself not hear it.

It’s been four days since Draco has touched her and she knows he must be feeling the effects of the separation.

She feels awful. He needs her, he depends on her to be there when he needs her. He’s probably in pain, miserable and suffering.

She can imagine the warmth of his arms around her, the sweet whispers he used to press into her hair. What she’d give for that again, the comfort and the warmth, the feeling of being cherished in that moment.

_ This is the worst part _ , she tells herself. That she still wants him to be happy, that she still wants him to hold her while she’s also terrified of what he’ll do if she sees him again.

_ Relationships aren’t black and white. There’s good and bad and the good doesn’t disappear when the bad becomes unmanageable. _

So, yes, Hermione still loves him. She’s the type of Gryffindor fool who can’t help but love. She’s also the type of fool who won’t be made to feel inferior. She deserves more than this, and admitting it to herself hurts and soothes, burns and makes her cold.

She settles back onto the bed, wrapped in her warming charms and knits. The space behind her eyes throbs, and so do the scratches on her leg. 

Draco has been banging endlessly on the wall between their minds. Four hours today, at least, maybe longer, Hermione doesn’t know.

She does know that she doesn’t want to ignore it anymore.

There’s a particular process to what she wants to do. It’s one thing to look in on their bond, it’s another to be  _ there _ . 

She opens her eyes in her library, glad at least one part of her mind is still quiet, still untouched. She wanders the stacks of books, hands trailing over the spines of her memories. Her childhood teases at the edge of her sight, her years at school, her time with Ron, time with Harry. She pulls her fingers away from the books as the light dims, the air turns somber.

The restricted section. This wing has been attracting shadows for the past few months. The lock falls off when she touches it, and the gate opens with a creak.

There’s almost no light down the stacks she wants. All the books here have been sealed shut, turned to stone. Something in the dark moves, slithers away slowly. 

Hermione is not afraid of her own mind. 

She walks down the third stack from the left, each step slow. It takes longer than it should for the length of the shelves -- for a time, her feet move forward and the end doesn’t get any closer.. At the very end, on the wall of her mind is a door of glass. She will make it there, in time.

Whether it will be enough time to prepare herself, well. Her feet keep moving and she doesn’t think about it. 

She seems to blink and she’s there.

Draco is staring across this wall, face twisted into something too sharp, too birdlike. He’s grown his wings, pointed, skeletal, dark and they arc above him. He looks like an avenging angel, snarling at the darkness in her mind. When he sees her silhouette, he begins to shout, soundless when caught on the other side of the wall.

Hermione stops in the dark, not wanting him to see the details of her. Mental projections aren’t like physical bodies. They’re reflections of burdens, strengths, emotions. Hermione hasn’t looked at herself but she imagines she doesn’t look good.

From this close, Draco looks like a nightmare.

His blond hair lies lank, tangled, interspersed with feathers. His eyes are black and ablaze,  teeth sharp, mouth twisted. He looks every inch the Veela, every inch the monster behind the beauty.

He is banging against the glass and there are deep scratches from his claws, but despite his strength, the barrier stands. Hermione has strength of mind, here. She is not a bowing thing. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. She knows he can’t read her lips. She’s saying this for herself, trying to ease the ache in her chest. “I can’t make it enough anymore, Draco. I don’t feel like it was ever enough.”

There’s light on his side, a fiery glow that makes him look nearly demonic. She tries to see what he’s saying, her time in the DoM making her rather good at lip reading.

_ If Potter lays a hand on you _ , Draco is saying,  _ I will kill him. I’ll kill him! _

Hermione’s fear vanishes. She can’t believe him. She  _ can’t believe him _ .

Her hand gropes blindly for the nearest book. The stone crumbles away at her touch and she throws the memory in front of Draco, letting it splash against the wall.

It’s her, months ago, face pale and wretched. It’s him, in ecstasy. It’s an unknown woman writhing beneath him, moaning his name.

The memory fades and oozes back into the book which falls to the ground in front of Draco’s feet.

He’s breathing heavily, no longer screaming but still no less monstrous. His eyes flick over what he can see of her; the curve of her hip, the curls of her hair.

_ It was once,  _ he mouths.  _ How could I choose anyone over you _ ? 

He’s trying to sweet talk her and it’s not working. Not with his eyes still blazing, not with all the memories of how he’s hurt her on the shelves around her.

She grabs another book, spills another memory between them.

This one is sooner, not Friday, but maybe a month ago. She has her head in her hands, slumped over the desk in her office. He is telling the person he’s pounding into  _ how good you are, so good, so tight for me _ . Words that she had thought only belonged to her, actions she thought had only belonged to her.

This time, when the memory fades, she looks for any sign that he regrets it. Any sign that he feels guilty or ashamed. 

His eyes are narrowed in calculation. His mouth is pressed into a tight line.

When the memory slips away, his eyes widen, his mouth turns down. He looks heartbroken and so, so sad.

_ I love you, Hermione. You’re the only one I will ever touch again, I promise. Please, my love. _

It’s a manipulation. He’s not taking her seriously, he’s only after what he wants. Her touch, her presence, anything to make sure he’s alright again. He’s selfish, so selfish, at the edge of their destruction.

Still, the expression wrenches something in her heart and she is  _ furious _ . How dare he? How dare he not see her? How dare he not  _ see _ ?

She flies forward, meeting him at the barrier with a snarl on her lips.

“Don’t lie to me!” She punches the barrier, is satisfied when he leans back, eyes wide. Behind her grows impossibly dark so only the red light from his side touches her. “All you do is lie to me!”

His eyes dart over her, her face, her body. His eyebrows pinch together. When he meets her eyes again, there’s sorrow there.  _ I--I’m sorry. _

She pulls back, her eyes burning with her hatred. Hatred for how he makes her feel, how her heart is pounding overtime by being this close to him. Hatred for this clear manipulation and all the cracks in the facade she knows are there.

“No, Draco,” she says. “You’re not. And I am.” She pulls herself away from the wall, scared for what she might do. “I’m tired of being sorry all the time.”

_ Hermione,  _ he says. He looks alarmed as she backs away.  _ Hermione! _

She disappears into the dark, mouth dry and heart racing. Behind her, Draco begins to pound on the barrier again.

\--------------------------------------------------------------

“I need to go home eventually,” she tells Harry on Saturday. “I have work and my robes are there.”

Harry finishes the sentence he’s writing and looks across the table at her, leaning against the back of his chair. He seems entirely open, no expectations. “Is that what you want?”

“My entire life isn’t my relationship with Draco,” she says. She pauses, smiles a little self-deprecatingly, leans back, mirroring him, and toys with the necklace at her throat. “No matter how much it feels like it.”

“It’s still new. Raw,” Harry says. “He hurt you, Hermione. You can afford to take some time off work.”

Raw, he says. She supposes that’s one word of the turmoil she has to fight off every time she says his name.

“He hurt me,” she says. She thinks about Draco, pressed against the barrier, screaming for her to come back. “If I let it, that hurt will control my life. This isn’t going away, Harry, and the sooner I learn to live with it, the more I’ll get done.”

“Everything goes away with time,” Harry says.

Hermione’s mouth thins. “You haven’t been in love.”

Harry doesn’t say anything to that, just looks at her, confused. Maybe even a little skeptical. At least he doesn’t contradict her.

“I think I’ll go back tonight,” she says. “Will you come with me?”

Back on firmer ground, Harry smiles, sets his quill down. “Of course.”

\---------------------------------------------------------

Hermione is not a martyr. It’s something that set her apart in Gryffindor, her unwillingness to destroy herself for something else. She’ll go forward into fire for what she believes, but not if she thinks she’ll burst into flames.

She’s not a phoenix, she doesn’t regenerate.

It’s this that keeps her from going back to Draco after their...talk. She imagines that Harry would chain himself to an enemy to keep them alive, especially when all that’s needed is proximity. Hermione is not Harry.

She knows that Draco is, in all probability, dying right now.

It’s not her responsibility to breathe for him, even before he proved that he wouldn’t breathe for her.

It hurts all the same.

\---------------------------------------------------

Harry leaves her alone in her apartment on Sunday morning, having stayed the night. He leaves her with wards she couldn’t have hoped to cast by herself and a strange feeling of isolation.

Harry is her brother and the one who understands her most but he doesn’t understand this. He’s trying, but she has the suspicion that he thinks she’s being too soft, that she should be going after Draco like he’s standing between her and recovery. Or freedom.

Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe she’s being sensitive. But that’s what it feels like.

She can’t imagine being any harder though.

She walks from her living room to her bedroom and realizes, eerily, that the last time she went from her living room to her bedroom, it was not under her own power. It makes her legs feel weak and she has to sit on the floor.

The bed is still mussed from their struggle. She can see a tear in the duvet from his claws.

She pulls her knees up to her chest and lays her head on her knees.

_ Breathe _ , she commands herself.  _ Breathe. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may not be the satisfying conclusion you were hoping for but it's what felt real for this incarnation of Hermione  
> Maybe one day we'll come back to this and add a follow up.

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow us on our tumblrs!
> 
> Grey is hellagreysexual.tumblr.com
> 
> SinBin is sinbin-fanfiction.tumblr.com


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